Consequences and intentions

This is an article about Wal-Mart and health care in the US, about both of which I know next to nothing. I signal it because of the quote below. (I admit it's just the comfort derived from someone else saying something I have often shouted in the vast emptiness of my cranium.) The writer is speaking to his 'liberal friends'.

I wish you would see that motives matter less than consequences. I wish you could see that greed is at work when laws are passed that regulate markets, because regulations always produce winners and losers. I wish you could see that those winners and losers are often not who you think they are. I wish you could see that competitive behavior and free choice are forces that operate in the market as a check against greed. Finally, I wish you could see that greed is most difficult to restrain when it is exercised through the medium of government.

(via Instapundit)